8.27.2012

Now that the terminal is mostly complete, I can start to fill in the 'city' around it. Of course what better to surround this modern terminal than the urban decay of earlier times? Thus sharing the terminal area is an old, nearly abandoned warehouse for the long-gone "Martel" company. I don't know what this company did (in fact, I basically just made-up / picked a name to post on the building to give it a bit of character and suggestion of realism) but its clear it has seen better days.

This building started off as the much happier sounding "Walther's Hardwood Furniture Company", but it was way too colorful and optimistic for this part of town. So lot's of grey, weathering powders and graffiti were applied.

Dirty, grimy, and graffiti ridden. Its a somewhat sobering sight to the
passengers waiting on the platform of Quinntopia's long lost industrial
might. The below photo is an earlier photo before the lighting was installed.

Just a few sparse lights were added....a couple of LED streetlights made for effective lighting of the signage, and a couple of small strips of SMD LED on the interior give a little bit of an eerie glow through the windows.

Seen from the street, its lonely, sad, and slightly menacing facade that darkens the terminal area.

Another photo (where did all the passengers go? again shows how the bright
lights of the station provide some illumination to a piece of urban
blight in the not so utopian Quinntopia.

8.22.2012

A short little video which shows some recent work on the layout, recent additions, and other stuff. I take a lot of video at different points throughout the year, so you'll see some shots of things done several months apart! I wanted to focus more of the video on some of my more recent additions (the E3, X739500, Class 150, etc...) but somehow the Rap:t, my BR 03 (one of my FIRST loco's! Although I did a bit of weathering on it if you can tell!) and the Thalys ended up taking more screen time! That means I need to make another video soon!

About Me

I'm into N Scale to have fun. Growing up my Dad was really big into HO (U.S.A. of course, mostly Western U.S. roads like Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Northern Pacific, etc...) and he built me a small N Scale layout which I enjoyed as a small boy. Of the various trains I had at the time, the brand 'Minitrix' stuck in my head. As the years passed, N Scale was forgotten as new interests took my time.
As a new parent, I got back into model trains through O Gauge (Lionel and MTH). However, the cost of this scale, and the space needed for the sort of layout I wanted, made it a very frustrating hobby. Then one day at a hobby shop in California, I came across the Trix 2003 catalog; Inside this catalog were beautiful models of trains across Europe shown on beautiful layouts - and I was converted! It took a few years, but most of the O Gauge was sold (or stored) and I used the funds to start my new fantasy in N Scale.
Soon, I also discovered the amazing trains of Japan in N Scale, and begin my quest to build an interesting urban layout in a complete fantasy setting where the great trains of the world can run side by side!